"Smart advice companies should be seeking to harness the next generation of female talent, as a career in financial advice will seem more appealing and attainable."
Likewise, Quilter's Hince comments that young, female advisers will "play a large role in closing the advice gap" that will form as the current cohort of advisers begins to retire.
He says: "By celebrating the work of the female financial advisers we already have, as well as promoting the benefits of financial advice for all, we hope to encourage and inspire more women to take up financial advice as a profession."
Removing barriers
Unfortunately, several women advisers have experienced barriers and micro-aggressions. Rogers says that because she had been a PA in her old company, "a large number of my male peers didn't take me seriously".
For example, whenever she passed an exam it was not because she was bright or worked hard, it was "down to the luck of the Irish. There was a 'boys club' culture that I didn't feel part of", she says.
Even though she passed the AF3 exam "with flying colours", she was still also working as a PA. "I didn't get the support I had earned, so it was time to leave and find a firm where I would be taken seriously as a financial adviser."
In the end, a chartered financial advice business approached her, specifically because they wanted to hire a female adviser. But again, this was a tick-box exercise that did not work out. "I felt I was perhaps a ‘trophy’ for the firm rather than an asset and we parted paths."
Her tale is a salutary one: there is no point championing upward training of female staff if they are not going to be a valued member of the advice business.
Ayres said nowadays, there should be "no barriers" for a woman becoming a financial adviser – if you are working with the right people. She says this actually helps you to stand out, building a flexible, rewarding, long-term business that is "perfect for busy women".
But the situation was different when she started out. She explains: "When I decided I wanted to take the leap into financial advice, the barriers I encountered were twofold.
"The first was that perceptions were different within the financial industry, and female advisers relatively rare. I had to assert myself or face being overlooked for opportunities.
"The second was myself; I sometimes lacked the belief that I could succeed, as I would think ‘where were all the other women?’"
